“Sure, Chesty, I know him; he gave me a fishing-reel.”
“Well, I guess that’s the boy,” said Mr. Walton. “I take it they’re a poor lot. The point I wanted to make, Herve, is that you told me—as much as said that scouts don’t amount to anything. Now you see here are a couple of wide-awake fellows who saw something and rendered a service.”
“Not to Chesty McCullen, they didn’t.”
“No,” Mr. Walton chuckled, “but to the authorities, to the town, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That’s worth doing, isn’t it? You remember you said anything a scout could do, you could do something better⸺”
“Do you mean you dare me to?” Hervey vociferated.
“No, heaven forbid. Only I’d like you to remember that while you were off and your mother and I were worrying about where you were and what you were doing, these two scouts did something.”
“Telling on somebody isn’t doing something.”
“Oh yes, it is.”
“How do they know he did it?”
Mr. Walton shrugged his shoulders.